Over the last five years the Gemini Observatory has been adapting itself to a 25% reduced operations budget due to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Gemini partnership in 2012. One goal of this effort is to save $1.5 million per year in non-labor operations costs. A substantial fraction of that saving comes a reduction in energy use due to improved efficiency and new green energy initiatives.

The first step was to make the current facilities more efficient to reduce electricity use. We have already improved energy management at the La Serena base facility and remodeled both summit and base data centers to reduce the energy, and money, needed to cool computer systems. Changes in progress or that are being planned include replacing aging chillers on the summits with more efficient models, updating the transformers in Hawai'i, and converting lighting to use LED bulbs. Combined these efforts will save approximately $230,000 per year by 2017, assuming 2015 energy prices. Gemini will also continue to look for opportunities for additional savings.

In addition to efficiency savings, Gemini is investing in new green energy generation capabilities in order to reduce the amount of power that has to be purchased. Most of this is happening on Hawai'i, where the electricity costs are much higher than the US average. The installation of 300 photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof of the Gemini North support building on Maunakea has just been completed. This 100kW system will save $60,000 at year. Another 100kW PV system is also being planned for the roof of the Hilo base facility. It is hoped that the installation contract will be approved by the end of 2015. Once fully installed this should save about $40,000 a year. Finally, a 200kW PV system is being planned for Gemini South on Cerro Pachón, Chile. This should lead to an additional reduction in energy costs of around $40,000 per year. With these significant saving the investment in the panels should be returned within five years.

These efforts show how green energy makes financial sense as well as being good for the planet. Between energy efficiency improvements and green energy production, Gemini plans to save approximately $370,000 per year (assuming 2015 energy costs), or about 25% of the desired non-labor savings. In the process, Gemini's carbon footprint will be reduced by approximately 3500 tons of CO2 per year.

We were all delighted with the engaged audience of about 60 people who joined us in January at the AAS meeting in Seattle. The first half of the session involved a fun, role playing exercise on how to talk to a climate change denier, but I will focus on the second half in which we addressed the issue in teaching climate change at the astro 101 level.

I invited several people who are very involved in teaching climate change for an informal roundtable discussion: Ed Prather, Chair, AAS Education Committee; Travis Rector, member of AS Education Committee; Megan Donahue, co-author of an elementary astronomy textbook that several people have identified as very effectively including climate change; and Greg Rudnick, who teaches a section on climate change in his introductory astronomy class and is involved in KU sustainability teaching efforts. (This panel was not meant to be exclusionary; these are just people I was aware are doing this work!)

In the discussion, the question was raised of how to make progress when the obstruction to understanding is psychological, not rational -- it's not a question of missing ideas and information. Among the ideas that came up was that of inviting Katherine Hayhoe to speak at a future AAS meeting: she is a climate scientist and evangelical Christian, who communicates to Christian audiences about climate change from the perspective of an Evangelic. Hayhoe is featured in the documentary "Years of Living Dangerously", a 9-part series. Showtime is allowing the first episode on youtube as an advertisement for the whole series, which premiered in April, 2014.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brvhCnYvxQQThe first episode directly addresses the political divide of opinion on climate change

Megan commented that students appreciate hearing the counter-arguments to the most common objections by climate change deniers.

We urged the audience to send us links to useful teaching material for the website. To this end I have begun posting some that I know about as well as some provided by various folks. We will offer these on the teaching page of this website. We have a sense that hands-on classroom activities are something that is most needed. A few that I especially like include:

And we are excited to be planning a special session for next January's AAS meeting in Florida. Dr. Don Chambers, who is a climate scientist at U. Southern Florida and a lead author of the latest IPCC climate assessment, has accepted our invitation to speak at this session. His primary research focus is quantifying and understanding sea level variability, especially trying to separate natural climate variability from anthropogenic climate change. Hope to see you there!

As James wrote in the previous blog post, you're welcome to join us for our Special Session at the AAS meeting next Wednesday (7th January) at 12:30-14:00 in Room 4C-3. We'll be starting the new year with ideas and plans for addressing climate change issues in class and with the media.

We encourage anyone who is interested in the Sustainability Committee to contact us and get involved. We will post resources on this website for teaching and discussing climate change with journalists.

It's important for astronomers to try to make observatories, telescopes, university department buildings, and computer centers as energy efficient as possible, but our largest environmental impact and carbon footprint comes from airplane flights to meetings, conferences, workshops, etc. According to a New
York Times article, air travel emissions account for about five percent of
global warming, and that fraction is projected to rise significantly as the
volume of air travel is increasing much faster than gains in flight fuel
efficiency.

It would help this situation to develop better resources and technologies for videoconferencing and remote observing, and these are areas where we should continue to make improvements. In addition, long-distance travel can be difficult for some people, such as for those with families and those in relatively remote locations, and videoconferencing and webcasts can make conferences more accessible to more people.

Nonetheless, long-distance travel is sometimes necessary, including for early-career scientists who need to advertise their work and network at conferences. I joined the Sustainability Committee in 2014, and one thing I am trying to do and trying to encourage others to do is to take more trains. In the US, long-distance trains can be very useful depending on where one wants to travel. They are not always the fastest mode of transportation, but they are comfortable, convenient, have nice views, and have wireless access if you need to work. And importantly, they save energy.

I work at the University of California, San Diego, and I'm taking the train up the Pacific coast to Seattle via LA, the Bay Area, Sacramento, and Portland. I'm traveling nearly 1500 miles (2400 km)--nearly the entire distance from the southern to northern border of the US. As I wrote on on my own blog, Amtrak trains expend 1,600 BTUs of energy per passenger per mile, while planes use 2,500 and cars use 3,900. Trains are much more energy efficient than planes, cars, and buses, and by not flying to Seattle, I'm saving tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This is just a start, but I am trying to view flying as a luxury or necessary evil that I will avoid and reduce when possible.

In any case, I'm excited to be part of the new and improved Sustainability Committee, and if you're interested, join us at the AAS and make an effort in 2015 to reduce your and your institution's carbon footprint.

After a brief respite and following excellent leadership by former chair Kartik Sheth, the Sustainability Committee has been reconstituted (see About Us for new membership). We will hold a Special Session at the Seattle AAS meeting in January:

12:30 - 2:00, Wed. Jan 7

We'll focus on two topics: 1. teaching climate change in Astro 101; and 2. communicating about climate change with the media and with climate skeptics/deniers. For part 2, we'll do a role-play exercise in which we stage a mock debate. Join us, and bring your best debate skills!

The Sustainability Committee has posted an article, Traveling Virtually, to the AAS web site with advice about how to work effectively in virtual environments, especially for meetings and observing, so that astronomers can reduce travel, make the best use of ever tighter funding, and help reduce astronomy's per capita carbon footprint.

Time to resuscitate this blog! The AAS Sustainability Committee, after a short sabbatical, has renewed its commitment to its mission, and with it, to maintaining this web space. One way we will do this is by significantly increasing the traffic on this blog, and by significantly, I mean at least one blog post per month (I know, crazy, huh?). So don't worry, still well within the safe range for your inbox, but somewhere above "non-existent".

And we'd love to have some help. So if you'd like to be a guest blogger, please add a comment or send a message to brodgers@gemini.edu to volunteer. Any topic related to our missionis welcome.

Please watch this space for more posts coming soon, and do get in touch if you have something to say. We look forward to hearing from YOU! Thanks!

We'll be posting announcements, minutes of our meetings, calls for input from the community and so on here, on the Sustainable AAS blog. Comments will always be open (but moderated) - please do add your voice!